Auditory Processing Disorders (APD)

Auditory Processing Disorder: What is it and what is it NOT?

Many children who attend speech therapy have difficulties with processing sounds. Some children we see at our San Francisco practice have Auditory Processing Disorder (APD), often called Central Auditory Processing Disorder (CAPD).

While our services page has a list of some specific areas that children with APD may have trouble with, here is a breakdown of some broader categories of auditory language skills that ASHA identifies as difficulties for children with APD:

Sound localization and lateralization

Being able to tell where sounds come from (localization) or determining if it was heard in the right of left ear (lateralization)

Auditory discrimination

Differentiating between phonemes, or speech sounds. For example, “dog” may be heard as “dot”.

Auditory pattern recognition

Being able to notice differences in sound patterns.

Temporal aspects of audition

Recognizing the timing of sounds and how each sound connects with another.

Now that we know what APD is, let’s discuss what it is NOT. The deficits listed above that characterize APD can be easily confused with symptoms of other disorders, such as ADHD or Autism Spectrum Disorder. For example, being easily distracted could be both a symptom of APD and ADHD. Since treatment for APD is very different than treatment for these other disorders, its diagnosis must come from an audiologist.